


Hotel Ceiling

by crossbelladonna



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, tw for drunk driver & road accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossbelladonna/pseuds/crossbelladonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Trying to hold onto the sweetest feeling,</i><br/><i>So I'll never let you go, don't you leave me lonely.</i><br/><br/>He sees Iwaizumi again.<br/>Iwaizumi hates it when Oikawa forgets his medication and refuses to leave his side when he does. Oikawa gets nightmares when he forgets, after all.<br/>He’d pull Oikawa against him under the covers and it would be the most comfortable thing as Iwaizumi would whisper the most soothing sweet nothings, occasionally a teasing remark now and then.<br/>He’d kiss his forehead, his face, his cheeks, his lips, telling him everything will be okay.</p><p><i>It’s not okay.</i> Oikawa thinks soberly, face against Iwaizumi’s old t-shirt that no longer smells like him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hotel Ceiling

**Author's Note:**

> o k....,, first of all,.....im srry (͡ ͡° ͜ つ ͡͡°)

It was that short argument that did it.

If he hadn’t been such a stuck-up, if he hadn’t been such a whiny brat, if he had just waited for Iwaizumi to explain that the girl he was talking to was just another confession Iwaizumi was denying. If he hadn’t been such a jealous prick. If he had just tried to assess his mood that day. If he had just listened before walking out, not even waiting for the rest of the team to catch up as he turns back, intent on going home instead of the small get together they were supposedly going to do, not looking back as Iwaizumi calls after him.

“Oikawa, you dumbass are you still mad? I already told you—” Iwaizumi had called him after Oikawa had slumped into his bed, face buried in the pillow, not wanting to face anyone. He hadn’t turned back at all and had sent a quick text to Iwaizumi to enjoy for the rest of the night, that he wasn’t feeling well. Iwaizumi noticed it immediately.

He had grudgingly accepted the call nevertheless. It was Iwaizumi, he’ll always answer for Iwaizumi.

“‘M not mad.” Oikawa mumbles into the phone.

Iwaizumi sighs exasperatedly.

“Talk to me.”

“I am! I’m good. You already said—”

“Hey.”

Oikawa closes his mouth. “Hm?”

“I love you, okay?”

Oikawa makes a small gasping sound, his heart beating erratically as he buries his head into the pillow even further.

“Hmnm,” he murmurs back.

Iwaizumi chuckles, teasing.

“Don’t be mad anymore. It was nothing. Don’t forget your medication okay?”

Of course, of course. He never forgets, you always tell him—

Oikawa smiles.

“Alright Hajime.”

Iwaizumi sounds satisfied.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you soon. I just have to get to my apartment.”

Oikawa peeks at the time on his phone and scowls slightly.

“It’s already close to eleven, you can come by tomorrow.”

“And leave you sulking the entire night? Not a chance.”

Oikawa hums a reply again.

“Love you. You can sleep. See you later, I’ll let myself in.” Iwaizumi says.

“Okay,” Oikawa replies.

“I love you too.” He adds then, a little too late, Iwaizumi has already clicked call off.

That night he makes a mistake of not forcing Iwaizumi to stay where he was despite of his “urgency”.

That night he makes a mistake of taking twice the dose needed for his medication and knocks him out completely for ten hours straight.

That night, he sleeps for too long so that he doesn’t hear his phone beeping and ringing consistently for nearly an hour, two hours after Iwaizumi’s call.

That night, Oikawa doesn’t hear Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s insistent calls, soon followed by other members of the national team, all worried.

 

And when he wakes up, when he does wake up, Oikawa is astonished, even disheveled to see his phone vibrating with waiting messages, blinking with the various missed calls and Oikawa can feel a huge headache coming as he opens one message.

Ironically, the first thing he thinks first: _Is Hajime here? What time did he arrive I didn’t notice—_

And Oikawa sees Hanamaki’s messages from a few hours ago—

_where are you goddammit??_

_why aren’t you answering?_

_OIKAWA THIS IS IMPORTANT!_

_you're asleep aren’t you? DID YOU TAKE TWO PILLS AGAIN?! WHY NOW, PLEASE WAKE UP_

_We’re at the North Hospital, Oikawa when you wake up, please hurry—_

Hospital?

Oikawa frowns. And he realizes it’s too quiet. Too quiet for nine am when Iwaizumi would be usually be bristling around the kitchen.

Oikawa pockets his phone and walks out.

“Hajime?”

He’s not really surprised when he finds the kitchen empty, pots and pans untouched. The living room is empty too and the apartment didn’t feel as though someone else had entered for the last ten hours.

And then his heart is beating so fast again.

_Hospital. Hospital._

Oikawa’s hands are shaking when he opens Hanamaki’s message and another one pops up.

_Oikawa, check the news when you wake up okay? Turn your TV on dammit. This is important. We’re at the North Hospital—It’s Iwaizumi, I’m sorry he—_

Oikawa drops his phone so lightning quick and he’s already across the room, turning the TV on to the morning news wherein the bulletin running through the bottom of the screen has been possibly going on for hours now and there’s only one pressing matter Oikawa is concerned about—

_“—victim of the hit and run by a drunk driver, 24 year old Iwaizumi Hajime, ace spiker of the national team…pronounced dead at the scene…on the way to his partner’s apartment….Oikawa Tooru…still no word from him at the moment—”_

Oikawa’s throat tightens up immediately, terror freezing his limbs, his fingers numbing. Suddenly the world seems away, his body a different part of him. His concentration fades and the sound of the morning news is just a buzz of discomfort and _oh god—_

“No,” Oikawa whispers and as soon as the first word is out, it’s followed by several others, hands going through his hair and pulling. “No, no, _no. NO._ ”

They were just talking _last night._ Iwaizumi was going to come see him _last night._ He was going to stay with Oikawa until he was better, until he makes sure, like he always does that he’s okay, that was _last night._

And then he’s running, back into the room to quickly change, not bothering with appearances he has to _hurry_ and he’s dialing Hanamaki with the other, fingers going through speed dial so fast—

This is just a joke, this can’t be real, Hajime isn’t going anywhere he isn’t—

Hanamaki answers one ring and a half later.

“OIKAWA!”

Oikawa’s having a hard time keeping his voice level, he’s shaking so bad and if he’s not going to try to keep himself together, to control this shaking, it’s all going to burst out of him.

“M-M _akki_ …”

Hanamaki sounds as though he’s wheezing, walking out of a hallway most probably what with the whole lot of other noises and voices from around him.

“Oikawa, listen, I need you to calm down for a moment okay? We’re at…”

He will not cry. He will not cry as Hanamaki is giving him directions. He will not cry as Hanamaki filters out the worst, saying only that he needs to pull himself together. No, Iwaizumi will kick him if he wouldn’t. He will see Iwaizumi, he knows. He knows as he’s locking his apartment door, running to the elevators. He will see Iwaizumi at the end of this day and it’s going to be okay, he will see Iwaizumi like always—

“Makki, don’t joke around _please._ ” His voice is getting weaker by the moment and he’s tapping his foot impatiently as the elevator goes down, clenching and unclenching his fist in frustration.

Hanamaki’s voice sounds slightly shaky, trying to compose himself.

And then it cracks. Hanamaki permits himself a brief, bitter laugh that Oikawa has never heard him make before.

“I wish I was.”

 

Oikawa has never travelled any faster and his cab has never seemed so slow as it did. He has never walked through so many people briskly as he runs through the hospital path which is now surrounded by a lot of people—people with cameras, from the media, thrusting microphones at him as he pushes his way into the hospital frantically because he has to hurry, Iwaizumi is waiting and—

Someone grabs his arm and there’s a camera pointed at him.

Oikawa turns, startled and is met by a face he doesn’t know, there are many of them, so many of them asking, pleading for a word of his and Oikawa can vaguely feel the hospital security fending them off.

The interviewer who grabbed Oikawa’s arm is still insistent and Oikawa has never been more annoyed. Pissed. Distressed. He shakes off the hold so roughly, sending the interviewer toppling back.

“LET GO OF ME!” Oikawa yells desperately, running again, bumping into people, strangers, there’s no one else he wants to see—

“OIKAWA, HERE!”

Oikawa lets out a breath and whips around to see Hanamaki and Matsukawa running towards him, panic and worry streaked in their faces. The national team stands behind them. Some of them are crying.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa both grip Oikawa on either sides.

“Oikawa, listen, don’t do anything reckless,” Matsukawa starts saying.

This time, Oikawa positively panics. What were they waiting for?! Iwaizumi is waiting! Oikawa shrugs Matsukawa off but his hold remains.

“Mattsun,” Oikawa’s voice cracks yet again. “Let me _go, let me go—_ ”

Hanamaki shakes him to get his attention and he stares at Oikawa intently.

“Oikawa. OIKAWA, listen to me, his parents are here, yours too, they can break it to you, Oikawa we have to accept—”

“NO!” And then there’s tears then, unrelenting and shameful and Oikawa can’t stop it even when it’s dripping down his chin. He shakes off Hanamaki too, and Matsukawa again as he tries going further down the hall, where somewhere, Iwaizumi is there, Iwaizumi is waiting—

“NO, LET ME GO!” Oikawa yells. “LET ME GO, MAKKI I HAVE TO—”

Hanamaki swallows down his own emotions, gritting his teeth as he grips on Oikawa tighter. Matsukawa does his part and pulls Oikawa towards him, putting a secure arm around his shoulders, preventing him from moving forward. Oikawa is a hysterical mess, sobbing.

“LET ME GO, I HAVE TO SEE HIM, LET ME SEE HIM, MATTSUN—”

“Shh, shh,” Hanamaki rubs at his back, trying to give at least some sort of support. “Calm down, calm down first, alright if you go into a panic attack, it’s not going to help Oikawa, okay?”

And Hanamaki doesn’t really expect it will help because Oikawa continues wailing, now sinking down the floor along with Matsukawa who is trying his best at comfort, rubbing Oikawa’s back.

“ _Mattsun…_ Mattsun…please, I need to see him,” Oikawa cries.

Matsukawa tries keeping his expression as blank as possible.

“H-He’s here, but Oikawa, you can’t see him, he—Iwaizumi he—”

Oikawa shakes his head vigorously, a litany of _no_ s getting the best of him. Matsukawa bores a helpless glance at Hanamaki who probably looks as distressed as he feels.

Other people are moving in the hallway now and Hanamaki whips his head around to see if it’s the annoying media again but no—

“Tooru?” Calls out a hushed voice, hoarse from crying.

Oikawa freezes when he hears it but he pushes away from Matsukawa and looks toward the direction of the voice and sees Iwaizumi’s mother staring back at him, her face tear-streaked, eyes red but there’s a relief of seeing Oikawa there. Iwaizumi’s father is behind her, talking to, surprisingly, Oikawa’s own parents.

Matsukawa helps Oikawa stand and then Iwaizumi’s mother comes running at him in an embrace and Matsukawa steps away.

“ _Tooru,_ ” she gasps into Oikawa’s shoulder, new tears in her eyes and she grips Oikawa’s shirt as if she fears Oikawa will disappear too.

“A-Aiko-san—” Oikawa chokes out.

He breathes. “I should have stopped him to come he shouldn’t have come—he shouldn’t have, he wouldn’t be—” And then he’s crying again, leaning miserably on Iwaizumi’s mother.

Iwaizumi’s mother pulls back to look at him, a sincere expression on her face despite everything.

“Don’t—Tooru, don’t—”

Oikawa steps backward, shaking his head, fists on his sides.

“I’m…it’s my…”

His mother also comes into his line of sight, grief on her face trying to reach her son but no that’s not only grief there’s also.

Pity.

Oikawa covers his face, biting back his own yells. This is too much, this is too much, his shoulders feel heavy is heart is, his heart is—

In pain.

Oikawa turns back on his heels, he runs.

 

The wind is cold on his cheeks, drying his tears and he’s unseeing as he runs away from there, the hallway is suffocating. He can’t breathe here, there’s no one here he can’t—

He can vaguely hear Hanamaki calling after him, Matsukawa as well. He doesn’t know if how his parents are reacting, how Iwaizumi’s—

 _Iwaizumi_.

Again and again, his heart shatters.

 

He didn’t bother to change the entire day, into the night. He has nobody else to change for. Oikawa doesn’t bother to eat, doesn’t turn the TV on again and refuses to answer the calls, the messages, refusing comfort. He’s lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling with no coherent thoughts going through his head, hand tightly clamped around a shirt Iwaizumi had discarded haphazardly in a closet they somehow share despite living separately.

_So fast. It had been so fast I wasn’t even able to say—_

_I didn’t catch him I—_

_I should have stopped him—_

_My fault, my fault—_

Oikawa closes his eyes.

 

He sees Iwaizumi again.

Iwaizumi hates it when Oikawa forgets his medication and refuses to leave his side when he does. Oikawa gets nightmares when he forgets, after all.

He’d pull Oikawa against him under the covers and it would be the most comfortable thing as Iwaizumi would whisper the most soothing sweet nothings, occasionally a teasing remark now and then.

He’d kiss his forehead, his face, his cheeks, his lips, telling him everything will be okay.

 _It’s not okay._ Oikawa thinks soberly, his tears wetting Iwaizumi’s old t shirt that no longer smells like him.

 

It’s nearly midnight when he goes out, disheveled, his shirt crumpled and his hair a mess. Skips to the closest liquor bar and sits himself on the seat farthest from the door to avoid eyes on him. Spends over an hour guzzling the strongest ones they have to numb the pain longer.

His phone is vibrating again and for once, Oikawa fishes it out blindingly.

It’s Matsukawa. He answers.

“Oikawa,” Matsukawa says, tentatively.

Oikawa doesn’t say anything and Matsukawa lets out a nervous sigh.

“Okay. Okay, you don’t have to respond you don’t have to talk to me but listen okay? Don’t do anything stupid. We’re all a mess, you especially I know that but don’t do anything rash alright? Makki and I will see you after we’ve fixed a few things,” Matsukawa clicks his tongue. “Are you at home?”

Oikawa swallows a shot.

“No,” he rasps.

Matsukawa sounds aggravated.

“Oikawa—”

“Not doing anything stupid,” Oikawa adds, hushed. “I’m not. I need to be alone. I’m not needed yet am I?”

Matsukawa is silent for a few seconds.

“We actually…need you…or at least for the funeral—”

Oikawa’s heart seizes up again and his hand is gripping the shot glass tight.

“For the eulogies, if you’d like,” Matsukawa says slowly, cautious.

Oikawa looks away to the other side of the bar and spots a girl hand in hand with a guy who’s teasingly kissing her cheek. The girl is laughing as she tries swatting his face away.

Oikawa shoves the shot glass on the table roughly and it topples over the other side, the sound of glass shattering faintly heard.

“No,” Oikawa tells Matsukawa, wanting to scream. “No.”

 

They bury him four days later and Oikawa’s sure it’s in the news somewhere. He hasn’t come out of his apartment since and his mother had called him up several times, asking him to come but he can’t do this, _he can’t do this he can’t—_

So he’s in his apartment, sitting on the floor of his living room, his back against the couch, staring at the blackness of the TV screen. He’s holding a picture frame, one with him and Iwaizumi when their first game with the national team.

The only sound in the room is the insistent ticking of the clock. Each tick reminding Oikawa of the steps the others are making to the wake, to the eulogy, to the cemetery, to the end—

He should be there.

His hands tighten on the picture frame.

 

It’s his anguished cry that did it. Everything bursts then. He smashes the picture frame away, the glass breaking as loud as his yells. Oikawa stands and overturns the couch, throwing the pillows away.

Another cry has him kicking the living room table, sliding his arm over the glass decors and shattering them on the floor.

He can’t see much through his tears, his body buzzing and he barely feels the cuts on his feet as he walks over the glass shards, walking around and throwing everything breakable—toppling a glass vase, other pictures of them lined up on the TV shelf, and only freezes when he sees something glinting on the wall.

It’s the framed medal he received so many years back, back in junior high where his insecurities had almost smacked through him and Iwa-chan, Hajime, he was always—

Oikawa turns back around, searching for the picture frame he had smashed earlier, hands pulling at his hair, shaking.

He finds it close to the shattered vase, water almost seeping through the picture and Oikawa grabs it, holding it close and he sinks to the floor, unmoving and quiet in the desolate mess he just made and will have to clean up later.

_He’s really gone isn’t he?_

_No one will be barging in late at night to soothe my attacks._

_No one will be there in the morning._

_No one to boost him up when he needs it._

_He’s gone—_

There’s a sound of keys at his door, opening and Oikawa can hear voices calling but can’t understand, doesn’t  care if _they are here to kill me, let them take me away,_

There’s an overturned terrarium beside him and he picks it up and throws it as hard as he can and it shatters loudly when it meets a pillar.

“OH MY GOD, WHAT’S GOING ON?”

Oikawa huffs but doesn’t look up to know it’s Hanamaki. Matsukawa’s probably closely behind him too.

There are hands on him, pulling him close to comfort.

“Oikawa, Oikawa, look at me hey,” Hanamaki squats down beside him, patting his arm.

“Let me go, Makki,” Oikawa whispers.

Hanamaki shakes his head furiously.

“NO. _No._ Listen to me goddamit, look at me,”

And Oikawa does. Hanamaki lets out a shaky breath.

“Let go of the frame for me please? You’re hurting yourself with the glass. Issei can you—?”

Oikawa lets it fall on the floor before Matsukawa can move.

“Leave me alone.” Oikawa mutters.

Hanamaki shakes him.

“ _Snap out of it._ Oikawa, we care about you okay? We haven’t seen you for days, we’re giving you space but _please_ take care of yourself—”

Oikawa’s breath hitches.

“It’s hard,” Hanamaki continues. “It’s very hard. But Iwaizumi wouldn’t like it if you mope. He would _hate_ it Oikawa okay? We hate it too, we have to get through this together though okay?”

Oikawa grabs Hanamaki’s shirt and drops his head on his chest, shaking with sobs.

“Makki, he’s gone, _Makki_ —”

Hanamaki rubs Oikawa’s back, glancing at Matsukawa who nods and leans over to wrap both of them in an embrace.

 

Hanamaki sets down the picture frame, without the glass, on Oikawa’s bedside table and watches as Matsukawa pulls up the covers on Oikawa’s sleeping frame.

Hanamaki looks at the photo again. Iwaizumi and Oikawa are grinning side by side, Iwaizumi having an arm around him that looks protective no matter how you put it. Oikawa has one of his genuine smiles, not a problem in the world for once.

“Give him time,” Matsukawa says.

“Hmm.” Hanamaki smiles sadly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”

Hanamaki exhales and motions to Matsukawa.

“Let’s go get to cleaning, shall we?”

 

Oikawa visits him.

It takes him a week to pull himself together, for his doctor to augment his medication after the days he missed, for him to start eating again, for him to start answering messages and calls, for him to face people.

And he faces him now.

He crouches down on the grass, facing the plaque indicating Iwaizumi’s name, his birth, his passing. Oikawa runs a hand through it all.

Presses his forehead against it, like the old times.

“I love you, still.” He whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> yknow i can almost hear my friends goin "good goin paola u killed him for real this time--"
> 
> hehe also i lied he's not actually in a hotel is he?? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> listened to [Hotel Ceiling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zApFFnexbP8) by Rixton doing this did not base it on the video tho v o v
> 
> thanks to hinagi (tei-gen@tumblr) for this!!
> 
> feedback is awesome!


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